How to Get Over a Painful Betrayal

Betrayal, ugh, we have all felt it at one time or another. That extreme pit that lands in the bottom of the stomach when we know that someone has hurt us. Someone we have been vulnerable with, and then repaid with a hurtful act of betrayal. Not only does the act hurt, but it also makes us question our boundaries, our triggers, and our level of trust in human nature. Betrayal forces us to look deep within ourselves and may even cause a “dark night of the soul.” (And although these can be extremely enlightening, they are usually excruciatingly painful.)

I recall how I felt after my husband and I split and several of my good friends came forward (after the fact) with VERY painful pieces of information about his behavior when we were still married. It was like a sucker punch because these people knew things (but kept them hidden from me) rather than share uncomfortable truths about the person I was married to. It wasn’t bad enough that I felt betrayed by my partner of 15 years, but also by several friends, who I believed up to that point, had my back. That double whammy took me years to forgive and recover from. Yes, they all had their separate reasons for keeping this knowledge to themselves, I understood that, but it didn’t make it any less painful.

Betrayals come in all shapes and sizes; from finding out a serious boyfriend still has a Bumble account (and has been caught swiping right) from being not invited to a social gathering by people we thought were friends. I recall knowing of a situation where a 9 year old child was slapped across the face by her divorced mother when she confessed to her father that her mother’s new boyfriend was sexually abusing her. Her mother refused to believe the daughter and insisted the daughter tell her father that she made the story up for attention. Some situations are so brutal and painful, we might wonder how people survive the betrayal and ever learn to trust again.

So how do we navigate our way though these betrayals? It’s normal for us to put the ownership back on ourselves, but most acts of betrayal have very little to do with us, and more to do with the other person. Yes, it’s hard NOT to take things personally, but as the old saying goes, “whether people love us or hate us has nothing to do with us.” Most of us live in our own little “test tube” of sorts and have formed our “truths” from the experiences we have had, thus, developing our realities; and seldom do these match up. 

In truth, the mother who slapped her daughter was terrified to be alone, and was more inclined to lie to herself and betray her daughter. The insecure boyfriend on Bumble needed outside validation to feel better about himself. Or even my one friend who was more concerned with the possibility of losing work if she told me some unpleasant truths about my husband. None of these betrayals were about the person they most effected, but rather about the weaker person who did the act itself. We tend to fall into the  “how could they have done this to me” thinking, when in reality, it is more about the betrayer’s selfishness, rather than their desire to hurt us. They are busy in “survival mode” and not necessarily considering how their behavior will destroy another.

Once we understand this, it makes the betrayal a little easier to swallow, but then also begs the question, “do I still want to have this person in my life?” This is a very personal thing since each situation is different. Yet we still need to understand that actions will always speak louder than words. Forgiveness is key to our healing, but that doesn’t mean we need that person to keep center stage in our life any more, or forget what they did. Rest assured, if they did it once, they are capable of doing it again. It gives a clear indication of how their unhealed traumas can hurt others, and if they remain unhealed, the pattern will follow.